The Giving Tree: A Single-Juniper-Tree-Batch Gin Changes the Game
Procera Gin, made in Kenya, Is Blazing More Than One Trail.
Welcome to Day 3 of “Gin Week,” at The Mix, a seven-day celebration and examination of the fascinating world of that botanical spirit that has anchored all your Martinis, Tom Collinses, Negroni and G&Ts for more than a century.
We’ve been doing a few gin reviews every day. Now, it’s time to zoom in on one gin in particular.
When weighing possible candidates for feature-story treatment, there was only one real choice, and that was the most particular, peculiar, specific and sui generis gin currently out there: Procera, which calls itself an “equatorial African gin.” I’ve been hearing about this gin for six months or more, and now it’s time to share the news with you.
But, before we get into that, an offer!
Here at The Mix, we are grateful to have a large group of subscribers—and quite a few new free subscribers who have all joined within the last few weeks.
We appreciate all of you and hope that this week you really enjoy the Gin articles, interviews, recipes and round-ups we have in store.
During Gin week, if you decide to become an annual member, we are offering 20% OFF if you click on the link below. The secret password is GIN.
Thanks from The Mix!
As a spirits and cocktail journalist, distillers and liquor brand ambassadors often offer me all kinds of things to touch, smell and taste, from pieces of charred stave taken from whisky barrels to dozens of different dried botanicals. The purpose of these sales props is to substantiate the producer’s claims to authenticity and process.
But in all my years, nobody has passed me a jar of juniper berries and said, “Here. Eat this.”
That’s because everyone knows you don’t eat juniper berries—not those used as the defining ingredient in gin, anyway. Juniper berries are typically dried into hard little rocks before they are used to flavor gin. We are so accustomed to this representation of the plant, that it’s difficult to even visualize what a fresh juniper berry might look like.
Turns out they look like, well, berries. They’re about the size and color of a black current, but with a tougher exterior. They taste like juniper, as you would expect they would, but are quite bright and juicy. They also have seeds. I don’t see them replacing wasabi peas at bars anytime soon, but chewing on one was not an unpleasant experience.
The folks currently handing out juniper berries like they were Chiclets are the people behind Procera, a new gin made in Kenya that is quickly making a name for itself in bars in the United States. Procera is distilled from Juniperus Procera (hence the name of the gin), a juniper variety that is indigenous to the highlands of Kenya where it grows wild at an altitude of 2,200 meters, ripening slowly under the equatorial sun.
Using a unique species of juniper to make gin would be enough to garner Procera some press attention. (While there are many different kinds of of juniper, most gins on the market are made with Juniper communis.) But Procera is distilled using fresh juniper berries, not dried.
“What we’re trying to do is showcase Africa,” said Alan Murungi, a partner in Procera. “We’re showcasing the sun, the terroir, the products, the peppers, the juniper. It’s a fresh product, whereas most gins are made from dried juniper from Eastern Europe.
About those peppers. Another unique informing botanical in two of the three Procera expressions that are currently available is peppercorns. The Blue Dot contains Selim pepper, an aromatic spice often used in stews and soups. The Red Dot has six peppers, including Selim, Alligator pepper, Ashanti pepper, Elephant pepper, black pepper and Poivre Sauvage.
“The Selim pepper leads the second half of the structure of the gin,” said Murungi of Blue Dot, which is Procera’s flagship gin. “The first half of the gin is really the fresh juniper. That’s the structure and the other botanicals play off that.”
The germ of the idea that became Procera was born one day when a group of friends were enjoying a round of Gin & Tonics made with Bombay Sapphire gin at Murungi’s lunchroom table. (Murungi is also a chef who owns a restaurant in Kenya.) Murungi’s gaze drifted to the side of the Sapphire bottle, on which the gin’s botanicals are listed.
“These botanicals come from Africa,” he said. “Why are we sending African botanicals to London to make a gin, to send it back to us to make Gin & Tonics every Sunday? So, that frustration led to the creation of the first craft distillery in Kenya.”
Production at Procera is small. They put out about 100 bottles a day. Still, even with that miniscule output, the brand has managed to make an international impression since launching in 2019. The gin is on offer at the famous Duke’s Bar in London, where head bartender Alessandro Palazzi is reportedly very adept at upselling customers to a Procera Martini, to the tune of 40 pounds sterling. The gin is also served at Claridges and the Connaught Hotel.
The Procera team recently went to Bemelmans Bar inside the Carlyle Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where Procera is in stock. “There was a Thai diplomat who was being told about it by a Kenyan ambassador,” said Guy Brennan, co-founder of the gin. “He was on his third Procera Martini!”
Brennan and Murungi were in New York recently. They spoke at an event held at the Bar Titsou, a jewel box speakeasy tucked inside Fouquet’s Hotel, which is itself hidden in the northern climes of Tribeca near the Holland Tunnel. They were there to unveil their latest creation, Procera Green Dot Gin. If Procera’s Red Dot and Blue Dot gins are hyper-local, then “the Green Dot, I can say it is a super-hyper-local gin,” said Murungi. (My mind drifted to Stripes and “double, double top secret.”)
Green Dot doesn’t just come from a single country, using a single kind of indigenous juniper berry and, as raw material for the distillate, sugar cane from western Kenya, grown on shore of Lake Victoria. Its berries are sourced from a single juniper tree.
The tree for the 2023 vintage of Green Dot hails from Narok County. The plant is 30 years old. The juniper berries, together with some of the leaves and wood from a branch, were carefully harvested by hand and became the sole botanical input. Each bottle of Green Dot costs $179 or thereabouts. (Procera, owing to its limited production, is not cheap. The Blue Dot, which is the gateway product and most readily available, comes in at just under $100.)
Green Dot Gin began as a commission. One of Procera’s best accounts in England is Master of Malt, the online spirits retailer. Every September, the company releases eight special bottlings, usually of brown spirits. A few years ago, they asked Procera to come up with something for them, and gave them six months to do it.
“We asked, ‘What are we about?’” said Brennan. “We’re all about the juniper. So we stripped everything back. This is single-tree gin, the best juniper in the harvest.” The Master of Malt release sold out immediately. Last year, Procera made 1,000 bottles of Green Dot, this year 2,023, of which 672 made their way to the United States.
All of which begs the question: how do you decide what are the “best” juniper berries.
“It’s not the leaves. It’s not the wood,” answered Brennan. “The leaves and wood follow the berries. For me, it’s a rich, savory, umami complexity. I don’t want to use the word sweet, but it is a fruit. It’s got seeds. There’s a richness.”
Brennan paused for a second, and then commented on his commentary. “It’s weird,” he said. “A gin company talking about juniper.”
RECIPE: Alan Murungi’s Negroni
Procera Red Dot was created for a specific reason. “The clue is in the dot itself,” said Murungi. It’s a gin made for Negronis. “The red dot has spice, all those peppers, and an elevated alcohol level so it can hold its own. The idea is you can taste the gin in a cocktail. We don’t recommend the Red Dot for sipping as much. It’s more for cocktails. But it’s the richest gin that we have. If you liken it to wine, it’s the grand reserve.”
Murungi’s favorite cocktail is the Negroni. Here is his recipe. (Procera Red Dot is currently out of stock online, but you may be able to find a bottle in a liquor store. The new 2023 vintage arrives in stores in September. As the picture below attests, I used Green Dot as a substitute, as well as a different vermouth, Baldoria. It turned out just fine.)
2 ounces Procera Red Dot Gin
1 ounce Martini & Rossi sweet vermouth
1 ounce Aperol
Combine ingredients in a rocks glass filled with one large ice cube. Stir until chilled. Garnish with an orange twist.
Beyond the paywall: Gin Review Round-up #3.
Gin Round-up #3
Conniption Gin, North Carolina, 44% abv
Conniption is a fast-rising gin out of Durham, North Carolina, spearheaded by Melissa Green Katrincic, a rare female distiller in the gin business. Katrincic takes a laboratory approach to distilling, employing vapor infusion and vacuum distilling in the multiple-step incorporation of the gin’s many botanicals, which include coriander, Angelica root, cardamom, juniper, cucumber, citrus and honeysuckle flowers. The nose is light and floral, with juniper a muted presence in the back. The cucumber comes through strongly in both the smell and taste, giving it a bright, summery character. (We visited Conniption a few years back. They have a great cocktail bar called Corpse Reviver attached to their distillery.)
Ford’s Gin, UK, 45% abv
This gin needs little introduction. It’s the creation of Simon Ford, former bartender and brand ambassador for Plymouth and Beefeater gins, who launched it in 2012. The British Ford is a gin purist, so it’s no surprise that, of the many new gins created in the last two decades, Ford’s hews closest to the classic London Dry Gin profile. When you smell and taste this perfectly balanced spirit, your first thought is “Ah! Gin.” The botanicals include juniper, coriander, lemon peel, bitter orange peel, jasmine, angelica, grapefruit peel, orris root, cassia. But no one botanical dominates. A clean, versatile and delightful gin.
Revivalist Garden Gin, Pennsylvania, 42%
Revivalist is the work Brendan Bartley, the beverage director at Bathtub Gin in NYC and LA and the private Club at Central Park Tower. It is made in Amish country in Pennsylvania. Botanicals include lemon verbena, hemp seed, plum, rose hips and petals and Ashwagandha root. The lemon verbena comes through commandingly on both the nose and palate, which is also perfumed with pine sap and floral notes. A gin good for Martinis that make you feel like building a barn.
Staple Gin, New York State, 47% abv
This very under-the-radar celebrity gin was devised by food personality Rachel Ray, and is made at Do Good Distilling, a small outfit in Roscoe, New York. (Ray’s name is nowhere on the labeling.) Surprisingly for an Upstate New York product, Staple bears none of the hallmarks typically associated with American craft gins. Instead, it’s very much in the vein of a Mediterranean-style gin, with elements like Castelvetrano olives and extra virgin olive oil contributing to the botanical mix, alongside tarragon, bitter and bergamot orange peel, orris root, juniper. Savory, with a bit a saline, it’s suited to Spanish-style Gin & Tonics. Martinis are also recommended.
Woody Creek Colorado Gin, Colorado, 47% abv
Woody Creek was founded in 2012 by Mary and Pat Scanlan and Mark Kleckner in the town of Basalt. But it was Sean Kenyon, the noted Denver bar owner and bartender, who first alerted me to the gin. Kenyon has been associated with the company since the first. Since that initial taste, many years ago, Woody Creek has remained a favorite American gin of mine (though I do miss the old, minimalist, flask-like bottle), a sturdy London Dry-styled gin that tingles your nostrils with its mix of lemon, juniper and rosemary. On the palate, it is clean, bright, and fibrous, with a little bit of spice and a nice balance. It’s made for Martinis.
Wonderful piece. Though, it makes me want to have Martini hour now - Cheers!
Oh No... someone beat us to it ... I have juniper tree next to my front porch, and two in the back yard filled with berries. Leo and I have been talking about our "estate" gin probably from just the berries on the larger tree in the front. : > )) so far though it has just been a lotta talk. We'll call Ted Breaux when we get serious.